P.M. suggests joint Tasman meat-for-oil stand

Press, 17 August 1979, Page 1

P.M. suggests joint Tasman meat-for-oil stand

Joint marketing of sheepmeats by Australia and New Zealand might provide a restraint on oil-price rises by the O.P.E.C. countries, the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, indicated in Christchurch last evening.

1 Between them, Australia and New Zealand sell 90 i per cent of the sheepmeat in world trade. I Mr Muldoon was re- ! ferring to a suggestion i made to him during his i time in Australia this week when returning from the Commonwealth heads-of-state conference in Lusaka. “It was suggested that if made sense for us to stand together and tell the ; Arab countries not to play New Zealand off against Australia, that we should tell them, ‘We sell jointly and every time you put up the price of oil we will put up sheep-meat prices by the same percentage’,” he ' said. “It is an interesting suggestion.” Mr Muldoon was speaking to a meeting of about 400 to wind up the National Party’s campaign for the Christchurch Central by-election. It was his first public engagement since returning from the Lusaka conference. One effect of increasing oil prices had been to drive developing countries more and more to seek assist-

ance from Communist countries, he said. With the expected doubling of oil prices in the next 12 months, the combined deficit of developed countries in the West would rise to about S2OOOM, of which New Zealand’s share would be about $4OO million. But for underdeveloped countries the accumulating deficits, while lesser in real terms, would have very serious effects. Mr Muldoon recalled a visit he and Mrs Muldoon had made to a refugee camp run by “a so-called patriotic front” which had been occupied by about 2000 Rhodesian girls. “When I saw the Russian propaganda pinned up on the walls and the camp commander, who was Joshua Nkomo’s brother, wearing a Lenin badge,it was brought home to me vividly of what I had been reminding this country for years: those countries will turn for help to where they can get it. “The industrial countries must not only give aid but they must buy the goods from those developing countries.” Mr Muldoon said the

energy question had become a popular bandwaggon for sectional groups and for local bodies but New Zealand was too small a country to be split. “We are one people. Almost more than any other country on Earth and certainly more than any colonial country, we are a homogenous people. We are not South and North, not Maori and Pakeha, not town and country, and certainly not rich and poor. We are one people working together.” All round the world it was a bad time to be in government, said Mr Muldoon, because tough decisions had to be made. “You cannot make the decisions you have to make and still be popular, but I still have a tremendous amount of faith in the people of New Zealand,” he said. The National Party offered Christchurch Central what it offered the country in any election at this time: experience. “Government is not playacting: it is not the politics of grievances; Government is about the tough decisions, sometimes being wrong, perhaps, but taking those tough decisions.

“And weve got a tough one on our hands now with the gangs. Ben Couch made some progress on that today. But he also told them, : *You have to realise you’re Maoris and you’re damaging the reputation of your race, or else we’ll clobber you.’ “We don’t want to see them in jail; we would have to build a new jail for a start, but we have no use for this bashing, this slugging, this carrying of arms. It has to stop, and we will support the police all the way,” Mr Muldoon said. Mr Muldoon criticised allegations that his Government was governing by regulation and referred to the recently published book on parliamentary reform written by the Labour candidate in the by-election, Mr G. W. R. Palmer. “Last year the Government revoked more regulations than it passed: this year it is going to revoke more regulations than it passed. Back in 1972 the Labour Party campaigned on a point that we had passed so many regulations: 277 in fact. They got into power and in their first year passed 50 more than we did; they passed 327.”-